IT'S OFFICIAL: NEW JERSEY GOV. JON CORZINE SIGNS BILL TO REPEAL DEATH PENALTY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 17, 2007

Gov. Jon Corzine this morning signed legislation repealing New Jersey's death penalty statute, after lawmakers and criminal justice experts found that capital punishment wastes tax dollars, prolongs the suffering of murder victims' family members and is likely to result in wrongful death sentences. Law enforcement officers and district attorneys from across the state supported the repeal effort, as did many crime victims' advocates.

With today's signing, New Jersey becomes the first state in 42 years to legislatively abolish the death penalty; Iowa and West Virginia last did so in 1965. New Jersey reflects a growing national trend against the death penalty, with death sentences and executions facing a steep decline since the late 1990s and with more states advancing abolition and moratorium legislation as well as other reforms.

"Governor Corzine's signature on New Jersey's repeal bill is the end of a process that worked," said Diann Rust-Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "Policy makers conducted a thorough investigation of New Jersey's death penalty system. Murder victims' family members, law enforcement and ordinary New Jersey citizens made their voices heard. The result was a wise and logical decision to let go of a policy that wasn't working."

Rust-Tierney said that after a thorough review, it is not surprising that New Jersey acted as it did. "We know so much more about the death penalty and how it operates than we did 25 or 30 years ago when passing death penalty statutes was common," she said. "Today we know the risk of sentencing an innocent person to death. Today we know that the perceived comfort death sentences bring to family members of murder victims is elusive at best. Today we know the human and financial costs are much greater than we first anticipated. Based on all that we know, it would have been more surprising if New Jersey policy makers had voted to continue this failed policy."

Rust-Tierney noted that the same problems that characterize New Jersey's death penalty system – the risk of convicting and executing innocent people, the exorbitant costs associated with capital punishment, and its tendency to prolong the pain and suffering of victims' family members – also plague death penalty systems in other states and have led to increased public skepticism over this country's experiment with capital punishment. "Every state needs to take a careful look at this failed public policy," Rust-Tierney said. "Today, Governor Corzine did his part. He, the Senate, the General Assembly and the citizens of the great state of New Jersey deserve our thanks and commendation."

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